Another dissenting progressive homily

[JReducation]

Actually the Orthodox and some of the ancient oriental churches are – they are just not in perfect communion with the Catholic Church. They are not in a state of heresy.

Actually, they John Paul II and Benedict XVI discourage Catholics from using the word “heresy” when discussing our separation.

John Paul encouraged the use of “events of the past” and Benedict prefers “mistakes or errors in hermaneutics”

As to the Orthodox Churches, they are considered Sister Churches. They are not in the same category as the Reformation ecclesial communities, which the Catholic Church does not acknowledge as Churches but as communities that are imperfectly, but still connected to the Catholic Church.

The difference is very simple. The Orthodox, by virtue of their Apostolic succession have the right to be called Churches, as does the Catholic Church.

The Protestants are still attached to the Catholic Church, even though imperfectly, because when they lost the sacrament of Holy Orders they also lost the sacrament of the Eucharist. However, the Catholic Church recognizes them as connected to us through several means:

1. They take their Christian identity from the Catholic Church. Their Christology is perfectly valid. Therefore, they are valid Christians. They never changed the Christology that they had received from the Catholic Church before the reformation.
2. They take their scripture from the Catholic Church. Though they have dropped the Spetuagint, they have not added to the canon of scripture. What they have is what they took with them from Catholicism.
3. They take their prayer life from the Catholic Church. They have not changed the focus of their prayer life. They exclude devotions to all saints, including Mary, but they have preserved prayerful devotion to the Trinity.
4. Most Protestant communities have the same sacrament of Baptism.
5. The Catholic Church also recognizes their marriage as a valid sacrament as long as its between two people of the same faith. Even if they convert to Catholicism, they continue to be validly married and do not have to go through it again. They have at least two sacraments that they took with them and preserved since the reformation.
6. The Catholic Church also recognizes their faith in Christ, which is the same faith as ours and we recognize that they too have martyrs who have given their lives for the Gospel.
7. Then there are many moral truths on which we agree.
8. Finally, they follow the covenant of the OT and the fulfillment in the NT.

This has all been studied and documented by the Catholic Church. Therefore, they are not Catholics, because as we can see there are elements of Catholicism that are missing, but they are not totally disconnected from the Mystical Body, because they have many Catholic elements which the Spirit of Christ uses as a means to their salvation. This too is an official position of the Catholic Church.

The goal is to bring the Protestants and the Orthodox into full communion with the Catholic Church, not to denounce them as heretics.

I understand what the two Holy Fathers are saying. It’s like a distant relative that you want to bring back into the family. If you proclaim all of his faults, before you have acknowledged his virtues, you’re not going to get very far.

The idea is to recognize the virtues and truths found in other Christian communities and expose them to the truths that they are lacking. We do this through dialogue, charity and good example.

The Catholic Church holds Catholics morally responsible for not showing the loving side of the Church to our separated brothers and sisters. If we are arrogant about our Catholicism, that does not make us better Christians. On the contrary, it can produce bad results for those who are looking at the Catholic Church and it can also produce bad results to our own souls, because we are called to treat everyone with kindness, respect, love, generosity and humility, not condescention and condemnation.

Only God can condemn or judge the soul of another person.

JR